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Tales from the Lake of Sorrows - Campaign thread

Débuté par PJ156 , juil. 03 2012 10:56

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#76
ColorsFade
Posté 24 mars 2013 - 08:19

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PJ156 wrote...

Arrrrrggh!

All through the development of the last mod I told myself to do the principle npc convos as I went, and I didn't. Now I have them all to do and it is a very unpleasant job in deed and very slow!


Conversations... are indeed tedious. And unfortunately, necessary. And I think all of us who do this (creating mods) want to do so with as much polish as we can, so we take the time, despite the pain. 

I find that I will do just about anything else (area design, encounter, scripting, item creation) before I do a conversation. It's just.... work. But it is worth it. 

Keep up the good fight! Excited to play your mod PJ :)

#77
Guest_Iveforgotmypassword_*
Posté 24 mars 2013 - 11:46

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Apart from making barkstrings for peasants that change with the plot conversations are actually one of my favourite bits especially since discovering I have a dictionary on my laptop ! I sometimes write them before I've made an area or the people saying it then fill in the tags later.

I do know how you feel Mr 156 and this might make you feel better about forgetting..

When making my first mod I didn't know that the owner of a speak trigger and the conversation it fired didn't have to be the same person and I happily went along writing companion converations that would fire when different speak triggers were crossed and that was all the dialog my NPC's had. Then half way through the campaign I discovered this was not true and so long as you had the name of somebody present any conversation would fire so I chopped up the companion conversations and renamed them then had to write whole conversations for the companions from the start and add in all the global ints and conditions that would allow them to work.. It wasn't my finest hour ( actually days ) with the toolset !

#78
Dorateen
Posté 25 mars 2013 - 01:37

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PJ156 wrote...


Anyways, in Thunder Bay there is a rival party who consider this their turf.

Eventually, with the insults out of the way it had to come to blows, there's just not room for two of us in this town.


Confrontations with rival parties are excellent and always a highlight. I especially like the context of this encounter. Heh, there can be only one!

#79
PJ156
Posté 26 mars 2013 - 07:58

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Thanks for the replies guys, it's all appreciated and food for thought. I am a fan of campaign conversations. The files are small and it makes fixing things post release much easier, though there is nothing to stop you overwriting the conversation in a mod via the campaign folder. I have done that once or twice.

I did have a little smile there Tsongo, I would not have liked to have had that relisation.

I tend to have two types of conversation from the npc's. Plot moving convos are triggered, so I know they will occur. npc development conversations sit with the npc making them optional. My principle npc has 15,000 words right now and the support acts 10,000. Not every one want to wade through that so I try not to burden people with it.

I have some very specific ways of constructing conversations as well.  will post on that when I have more tim, see if anyone has comments to share. 

I did post once before but I think it was o the old forum ...

PJ  

#80
PJ156
Posté 29 mars 2013 - 12:03

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Testing, testing, testing ...

Posted Image

So far so good :)

PJ

#81
ColorsFade
Posté 29 mars 2013 - 01:37

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Keep it up PJ!

Always fun to see screenshots :)

#82
PJ156
Posté 01 avril 2013 - 09:05

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The playtesting continues with minor tweaks and balances.

The is the graveyard I did for Vault of the Damned. Not one Zombie in sight.

Posted Image

and again using the "must have" morning lighting one should always use when preparing screenies Posted Image

Posted Image

And now to work ....

PJ

#83
OfficerDonNZ
Posté 02 avril 2013 - 03:13

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Looking good PJ! and that graveyard looks oddly familer.... :D

#84
PJ156
Posté 02 avril 2013 - 06:00

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Thanks ODNZ, Does it look familiar? Have I copied something out of the memory banks ...

PJ

#85
ColorsFade
Posté 02 avril 2013 - 11:05

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The graveyard looks very cool.

#86
PJ156
Posté 03 avril 2013 - 06:12

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ColorsFade wrote...

The graveyard looks very cool.


Thanks CF. In game I have given it a very Autumnal feel with lots of falling and piled up leaves. It has very soft music and feels peaceful ... not a zombie or skeleton in sight. It is haunted, I could not rip the stereotypes that far, but I have tried to make it something different. 

PJ

#87
PJ156
Posté 03 avril 2013 - 12:43

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It's on its way to playtesters now. In the meantime I am running thorugh again and it looks a bit like this:

Posted Image

Sheep and Stone - On the Thunder Tree Road.

Posted Image

Sheep and Stone - The Lakeside Road.

Posted Image

Sheep and Stone - The Treeford Inn

More to go and things I know need fixing but I find my mind is drifting to the next project now.

PJ 

#88
kamal_
Posté 03 avril 2013 - 05:22

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PJ156 wrote...
More to go and things I know need fixing but I find my mind is drifting to the next project now.

PJ 

I have that problem too. :blink:

#89
PJ156
Posté 03 avril 2013 - 06:08

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kamal_ wrote...

PJ156 wrote...
More to go and things I know need fixing but I find my mind is drifting to the next project now.

PJ 

I have that problem too. :blink:


Tis the curse of us artistic types methinks Posted Image

PJ

#90
OfficerDonNZ
Posté 03 avril 2013 - 07:20

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PJ156 wrote...

Thanks ODNZ, Does it look familiar? Have I copied something out of the memory banks ...

PJ


Well I have playtested the mod for you so..... Posted Image

#91
Tchos
Posté 04 avril 2013 - 02:34

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I do like that cemetery as well.

#92
PJ156
Posté 04 avril 2013 - 05:57

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Tchos wrote...

I do like that cemetery as well.


Thank you Tchos, the city hak is a wonderful thing :D

PJ

#93
Tchos
Posté 05 avril 2013 - 10:13

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It is. I haven't played with it myself, but in one prefab that I've tried out that uses it heavily, it seemed to slow down the game. Have you noticed any slowdown with it?

#94
PJ156
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 04:22

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Sorry Tchos I missed this.

Yes it does seem to cause some lag if you use to much of it. I am guessing it is to do with the rendering. My main area that uses it stutters a little on my machine but I have had no complants from playtesters.
the beauty of the hak is the details, The planks and gravestones and especialy the market bits and bobs.

It's well worth the trouble of having to work out what you can and can't do with it.

PJ

#95
MokahTGS
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 04:37

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I have worked extensively with the city hak and it does suffer from fps slowdowns mainly because of the number of polys on each model. I even made myself a lower res version of the textures and it didn't seem to help much. If used with caution however (no making Waterdeep) the city hak is one of the best collections of CC out there.

#96
Arkalezth
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 05:51

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If it's of any help, I'll say that my computer is 4½ years old and I've played PJ's module with no slowdown problems at all.

#97
kamal_
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 06:00

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If you want to test for slowdowns, this prefab city uses city hak
nwvault.ign.com/View.php

I used it in Path of Evil for the city of Pros. The city is not only populated, but scripted as well, with conversations and stores set up.

#98
PJ156
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 06:41

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I mixed it up with the stock content will good results (says me).

It sure looks to purdy to pass by as Kamal_'s link suggests. I will post some picture when I get to that part of the mod.

I have used sempers work to and that looks very nice indeed. Not use the double gate yet but I will.

PJ

#99
-Semper-
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 08:10

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MokahTGS wrote...

it does suffer from fps slowdowns mainly because of the number of polys on each model. I even made myself a lower res version of the textures and it didn't seem to help much.


changing texture size won't be that effective. what that hak really lacks is lod models. whoever ripped those buildings from oblivion should've ripped the lod too. now there won't be anyone crazy enough wasting hours to create them manually :D

#100
Tchos
Posté 24 avril 2013 - 08:39

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That's a very nice prefab. I'll have to run around in there and check it out. :)

Ark, my computer is probably about the same age as yours, so I'll take it as reassurance, as well as the fact that it's mixed with stock content.

Semper, as an aside, is there a tutorial out there that explains making LOD for models? I have a side project that might benefit from that knowledge. (Sorry about the off-topic comment, PJ.)
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